Top Ten #Booknerd Characters

Top Ten Tuesdays are on a roll these days, with topics I adore. In line with the diversity theme, what’s the best moment in reading? Discovering a character you can relate to. For me, this is often when I find a character that loves books/words/geekiness just like I do.

These are my favourite fictional bookworms, in order of when I first met them (because I just can’t rank them!).

I don’t think I ever finished reading the full-length version, but I did read the abridged version as a little girl and definitely identified with Jo. I, too, used to love writing plays that my siblings and cousins had to act out.

I’m not one to swoon over literary characters based on their physical descriptions, but I really liked that St. Clair bought Anna a BOOK. And quoted Pablo Neruda. And ever since I read Anna, I’ve been wanting to read Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen (which I still haven’t, boo).

Seriously, the biggest reason I can’t wait for the movie is that I WANT TO SEE ALASKA’S BOOKS. She was a tortured character and I felt an immediate connection when I read about all her stacks of books. I have stacks of books too! But not as many as her, I’m sure.

Charlie is so awkward, but I loved reading about him discovering the world of literature as introduced to him by his teacher, Bill. He loses some brownie points in thinking that The Catcher in the Rye is an awesome book, but oh well.

Although Aristotle is the one who says all the wonderful things about books and words and reading, Dante is the one who opens this world up to him. Dante’s dad is also pretty awesome and probably has a hand in his love of books!

I won’t deny that Anna irritated me a bit, if only because I had went through what she went through and dealt with it – and I was impatient for her to find her way, too. But, anyway, Anna is a talented writer and I was happy to see her rediscovering her love of words.

A had me at the funny story of discovering Judy Blume’s Forever in Every Day. In Another Day, A really piles on the recommendations to Rihannon, which is awesome. I also felt really sorry for A in terms of never really being able to own books. A horrifying thing to ponder.

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A special mention goes out to Matilda (Roald Dahl) and Elizabeth Wakefield (Francine Pascal) who were probably the first two bookworm characters I ever read.

This reminds me of a beautiful tweet I saw by J.K. Rowling earlier this year: “All these people saying they never got their Hogwarts letter: you got the letter. You went to Hogwarts. We were all there together.” 🙂

I FORGOT ABOUT ALASKA’S BOOKS!! Omg, yes, I want to see that part of the movie so so bad. I hope they make her stack of books as crazy as Pudge saw it. :’) Ohhh, and I love and admire Liesel. I, erm, never read Little Women. And Charlie. OH CHARLIE. Perks is the first book that made me cry.